Maximising income - Mystery Shopping? Surveys?

Tetsuko

redcar wrote: »

I keep a record of fee per job, and expenses ie reimbursement for necessary costs ie minimum food or shopping purchases, travel mileage as per multimap, parking payments, telephone costs, printing costs, stationery, and a cost per photo / receipt scan.

Do you record your expenses in a different book separate spread sheet or whatever from your record of jobs.

OMG I must be setting off the extreme noob alarm system. :rolleyes: :rotfl:

jobbingmusician

I keep mine on a spreadsheet with a record of the jobs. And I claim at least 60p on every single job for the costs of printing out all the paperwork required! This covers cost of broadband, paper and ink - a bargain as I am sure the IR would agree! (I'm just about to do a car shopping job which has approximately 60 pages of instructions! Not sure how much to claim for printing on that one, yet.....)

wantmorejobs

Jo4 wrote: »

A friend signed up and got paid £5 for doing a job and £3 maximum spend limit but due to conditions set up by the company if you are asked if you want to upgrade you have to. This means that you end up spending approximately £4.69 instead of the £3 limit. Therefore my friend earns £3 + £5 = £8 - £4.69 = £3.31 profit. Then out of the profit has to come the 20 mile return car journey.

Another job they do gets paid £3.40 + £4 = £7.40 - £3.69 spend = £3.71. Again out of the profit has to come the 20 mile return car journey.

Is it really worth it?

If you are travelling that distance, it isn;t without mileage, and they dont expect you to be travelling extensive distances.
With regards to the top job you quote, if its the job i think it is for retaileyes is for a popular outlet which does daily offers and so if you upgrade the maximum it comes to is £3, retaileyes tend to be good at covering all spend that you will possibly incur.
THe other job sounds like a GAPBuster job, and yes they are notorious for their low fees, but if efficiently done can give you a slight profit as their quetionnaires are quick and easy!!!!!
Plus the argument is always if you don't think its worth it, don't do it, nobody forces you, i know it sounds harsh but its true!!!

Becles

I use a single entry system on accounts paper. I've got 2 columns - money in and money out.

Say I spent £17.28 on a meal and was paid £5 fee for the job and £3 mileage. The two lines on the page would be:

Detail .....Credits...... Debits

The Pub ...17.28
MS Co .....................25.28

and so on through the month. I also included expenses such as buying a ream of paper, toner, phonecalls, parking fees etc., in the credit column.

At the month end, I would tally up the two columns. Then take the credits from the debits and carry the debit balance forward to the next month. I staple all my receipts onto each months page, so I know where they are if I need them.

On a seperate sheet, I keep a tally of all the miles travelled. Just the place names I've been to, and the total miles that day. They get tallied up at month end and carried forward to the next month too.

At the end of the year, I total up my mileage and multiply it by 40p (allowable by IR), then subtract that figure from the final debit balance to give my taxable profit for the self assessment form.

hilary1

Becles wrote: »

At the end of the year, I total up my mileage and multiply it by 40p (allowable by IR), then subtract that figure from the final debit balance to give my taxable profit for the self assessment form.

I'm not certain you can claim 40p a mile if you are being paid mileage by the MS company? Might be worth checking that with IRev, unless some-one already knows?

Becles

I'm already declaring mileage payments in my debits column, so it all gets accounted for once the final calculations are done.

jobbingmusician

The answer is yes you can - you can rely on Becles to know the ropes

You claim the 40p as tax free, not as extra costs from the MS company. So if for example imagine you are working for a company that pays you £5, plus the cost of your meal, plus £3 travel. The company is 5 miles away. You claim all the allowances, but when you are calculating your PROFIT for tax purposes, I work out the following.

Total travel costs allowable from IR = 40p x 10 (10 miles round trip) - you need to subtract an extra £1 from the profit.

Profit = £5 - 60p for printing costs, - £1 extra travel. Taxable profit = £3.40

Genie75

You'll also need to keep your S/E calculations separate from your PAYE, and your PAYE companies separate from each other. The IR will also want to know about other things, such as interest from any bank accounts or other earnings.

Really, the best thing to do is wait for a couple of days for the forms and helpsheets to go online and have a look. It's much easier to work out what figures you need once it's in front of you - and if you can do it online there are interactive buttons to help

As for printing, the IR allow 6p per sheet to cover ink and paper.

Pumpkin_2

charl8888 wrote: »

Anyhow enough of my ramble, I was wondering if anyone has had any problems with a certain 'car' assignment with TNS that keeps getting delayed? Or is it just me?!

I have had 6 emails delaying the start of this job, only got the go ahead today and the details of which cars on Monday. I am now thinking that I can't do them as hubby and I share our car and he is taking it away on business on the 12th. Originally my dates were 20th March - 13th April which would have given me lots of time to do the 6 visits allocated but now I don't think I can do any. Do you think TNS will go ballistic if I email them and say I can't do any of the visits anymore? I'm really worried

jobbingmusician

No, it's their fault!! They have really screwed up this assignment bigtime.

They are mucking me about as well, to the extent that I am considering the Small Claims Court for breach of contract!